February will be a month full of mostly sequels for me with a few new-to-me authors sprinkled in. I've got eleven books on my list, plus there is also the monthly reading challenge for February that is short stories or novellas, but I'm not going to add those in because I'm not completely sure what I'll be reading for it yet. I'll make a separate post about that.
Book Club Read
Lesson One of the Scholomance: Learning has never been this deadly.
A Deadly Education
is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure
means certain death (for real) — until one girl, El, begins to unlock
its many secrets.
There are no teachers, no holidays, and no
friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any
letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until
they graduate… or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the
halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere.
El
is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without
allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains
and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the
monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic
might also kill all the other students.
Reading at Fantasy Buddy Reads
-I'm buddy reading five books over at Fantasy Buddy Reads this month. I'll be continuing on with three series I started buddy reading in January. The first is the second book in the Beaufort Scales series.
A festive tale of kidnapping, explosions, &
stolen turkeys.... One should never meddle in the affairs of dragons,
but someone has been doing just that. They’ve been making imitation
dragon scale baubles that are nothing short of lethal, and kidnapping
delivery drivers all over the Yorkshire Dales. They’ve also been leaving
behind some distinctly dragon-ish traces. Beaufort Scales, High Lord of
the Cloverly Dragons, is hot on the trail – or would be, if he wasn’t
having certain political problems at home. That leaves Alice and Miriam
to track down the real culprits, rescue the hostages, and salvage
Mortimer’s bauble reputation, all while misleading the police regarding
the of existence of dragons, and hopefully without being blown up by
unexpectedly aggressive Christmas decorations in the process. Luckily
they have the full resources of the Toot Hansell Women’s Institute at
their disposal. They’ll need it. And then there’s the small question of
who stole all the Christmas turkeys… Dragons, the Women's Institute, and
one very suspicious cat. What could possibly go wrong? Yule Be Sorry is
the perfect Christmas cozy mystery for anyone who likes their crime
funny, dragonish, and full of cake and friendship.
-The second is book two in the Threadlight trilogy.
FEAR THE ROSES. FEAR THE LIGHT.
Chrys
swore to never again let the Apogee take control but, in a moment of
desperation, he gave in. Now, he will learn what the Apogee truly wants.
In
Alchea, Laurel will do anything to get her threadlight back, even if it
means working for the leader of the Bloodthieves. But she has no
choice...a life without threadlight is no life at all.
To the
west, Alverax travels with the Zeda people to the large port city of
Felia, where they seek refuge after the fires in the Fairenwild. But he
shattered the coreseal, and no one quite knows what the consequences
will be. They only know it won't be good.
Together, they changed the world—now, they must save it.
-Book three is the second book in the Skinjacker trilogy.
Everlost, the limbo land of dead children, is at
war. Nick the “Chocolate Ogre” wants to help the children of Everlost
reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Mary Hightower,
self-proclaimed queen of lost children and dangerous fanatic, is
determined to keep Everlost’s children trapped within its limbo for all
eternity. Traveling in the memory of the Hindenburg, Mary is spreading
her propaganda and attracting Afterlights to her cause at a frightening
speed.
Meanwhile, Allie the Outcast travels home to seek out her
parents, along with Mikey, who was once the terrifying monster the
McGill. Allie is tempted by the seductive thrill of skinjacking the
living, until she discovers the shocking truth about skinjackers.
-I'll also be reading this book, not only as a buddy read, but also for NetGalley. This author has been on my radar for a while but I haven't read any of his books yet, so hopefully this is a good one.
A Holmes and Watson-style detective duo take
the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from the Edgar-winning,
multiple Hugo-nominated Robert Jackson Bennett
In Daretana’s
greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all
appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the
Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the
leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying
and impossible.
Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a
detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her
eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times,
and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside
the walls of her home.
At her side is her new assistant, Dinios
Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s
brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly
infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches
Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit
that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.
As the two
close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire
itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is
Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets
safe from her piercing intellect.
By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup
mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to
deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly
recognizable and thrillingly new.
-This next one is also by a new-to-me author.
A century from now, thanks to a technology
allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved
its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung
colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North
family—composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones
are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each
generation. For another, the original three clone “brothers” have gone
their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly
rivals more than allies.
Or maybe not so friendly. At least
that’s what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle
suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who’d
like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way
he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he’ll make enough
enemies to ruin his career.
Yet Sid’s case is about to take an
unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny
resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St.
Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in
cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her
innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the
St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime.
Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.
Now
Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests
within the police department and the world’s political and economic
elite . . . all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike
again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a
mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line
between hunter and hunted is a thin one.
Reading with the Mystery Book Club
-We're reading three books in the Mystery Book Club this month. Two of them are from two different series. The first one is the second book in the DCI Logan series.
Not all monsters are make-believe.
When a
badly mutilated body washes up on the shores of Loch Ness, DCI Jack
Logan's dream of a quiet life in the Highlands is shattered.
While
the media speculates wildly about monster attacks, Jack and the Major
Investigations Team must act fast to catch the killer before they can
strike again.
But with Nessie-hunters descending on the area in
their dozens, and an old enemy rearing his ugly head, the case could
well turn out to be the most challenging of Jack's career.
And, if he isn't careful, the last.
Death and dark humour combine in this fast-paced Tartan Noir crime thriller set in the Highlands of Scotland.
-The second one is a book in a series by an author I've never read before. We're reading the seventh book first because they're all standalones and this is when the books are supposed to start being really good. The plan is to go back and read the first six if we like this one. Normally I'm not a fan of doing this, but I was iffy about this series to begin with so I'm making an exception. I would rather start with the better books.
Oslo in November. The first snow of the season
has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother
gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that
inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is
his mother’s pink scarf.
Hole suspects a link between a
menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s
mother—and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on
the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something
else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game
whose rules are devised—and constantly revised—by the killer.
Fiercely suspenseful, its characters brilliantly realized, its atmosphere permeated with evil, The Snowman is the electrifying work of one of the best crime writers of our time.
-The third book is a standalone, also by an author I've never read before.
Michelle and Cliff Stage bought their isolated
vacation cabin in the mountains of North Carolina with hopes of
repairing their eighteen-year marriage. But when Cliff disappears one
night searching for the source of a mysterious light in the woods,
Michelle's life will change in unimaginable ways. After the sheriff's
department fails to find him, Michelle scrambles down the same dark
mountainside alone, the strange, beckoning light her only guide.
What
she discovers is a cabin, identical to theirs, housing a life she
barely recognizes--and a husband she hardly knows. Cliff is a changed
man. Now caring and considerate, no longer a manipulative womanizer, he
is also missing a finger. He claims that Cassie, their teenage daughter,
is dead, killed in a car accident over a year ago. Michelle knows
that's not possible--Cassie had phoned her from Atlanta only hours
before. Even when shown Cassie's grave, Michelle refuses to accept she's
gone.
Michelle wants her daughter and her life back, and the
only clue to what has happened is a man named Pink. A real estate agent
and the man who years earlier built Michelle and Cliff's cabin, Pink was
rumored to have killed his wife and buried her on the property then
vanished never to be seen again. But in Michelle's new reality, Pink and
his wife still reside in town and Pink's smile-splashed billboards are
everywhere. To get back to the world where her daughter exists, Michelle
must unravel the mystery of Pink while questioning her very
reality--and her sanity. Haunting, atmospheric, and deeply
thought-provoking, The Cabin on Souder Hill questions the very nature of
our existence and the choices we make to form it.
The Pick it For Me Book
-My "Pick it for me" list consisted of nothing but historical romances this time around because that's what I'm in the mood for reading the most. This can be blamed on me finally watching the second and third seasons of Sanditon. After the actor who played Sidney wouldn't come back and do the show, I lost interest because it just wouldn't be what I had been hoping for. It's taken me a couple of years to be able to go back and finish watching. I think the reason I could go back and watch now is due to that fact that I got my closure for Sanditon by reading two different finished versions of the novel by two different authors, so I felt like I could watch the TV show and enjoy it for what is was. Anyway, I wanted more of that type of romance, so I made a list full of it!
She can only stay as long as the invalid needs her... so he makes it his business to need her forever.
When
a cryptic invitation brings Giulia Pepper to her uncle's remote estate
in Devon, she arrives in dire need of a benefactor, only to discover
that her uncle never sent her any invitation—nor does he want her there.
Forced into a corner, Giulia must contrive a way to convince him to
allow her to remain, just long enough to figure out where to go next.
Nicholas
never asked for an earldom, but when an aged lord arrives at his door
and tells Nicholas that he is next in line for the title, he willingly
goes to Halstead Manor to learn the role. But someone isn’t pleased with
the heir, and after a gunshot wound in the arm, Nicholas must discover
who is out to get him.
When Giulia stumbles—literally—over a
fallen man on the lane to Halstead, she has her she can stay at Halstead
and nurse her uncle's heir back to health. But as mystery builds and
danger mounts, will Giulia and Nicholas be able to solve the puzzle
before the Earl forces Giulia to leave for good? And furthermore, can
they manage to work together without losing their hearts in the process?
The Hercule Poirot Book
A most unusual series of crimes at a student hostel intrigues Inspector Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock, especially when a simple case of kleptomania paves the way to murder.
Hercule
Poirot doesn’t need all his detective skills to realize something is
troubling his secretary, Miss Lemon—she has made three mistakes in a
simple letter. It seems an outbreak of kleptomania at the student hostel
in which her sister works is distracting his usually efficient
assistant.
Deciding that desperate times call for desperate
measures, the great detective agrees to investigate. Unknown to Poirot,
however, desperation is a motive he shares with a killer. . . .
